| Oak Street 
/ UNCLASSIFIED 





THE FOOD RESEARCH INSTITUTE 


STANFORD UNIVERSITY 
19955308 ILL ims 5. 


MAR 42 1993 


Arenas. 





FouNDATION, ORGANIZATION, GENERAL POLICIES, 
RESEARCH WorkK IN PROGRESS, 
PUBLICATIONS 


STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA 
FEBRUARY 1, 1923 





THE FOOD RESEARCH INSTITUTE 
1922-23 


ADVISORY COMMITTEE 


Henry S. Pritchett, President Carnegie Corporation, ex officio. 

Ray Lyman Wilbur, President Stanford University, ex officso. 

Herbert C. Hoover, Secretary of Commerce. 

John C. Merriam, President Carnegie Institution of Washington. 

Julius H. Barnes, President U. S. Chamber of Commerce, formerly 
President U. S. Grain Corporation. 

William M. Jardine, President Kansas State Agricultural College. 

James R. Howard, formerly President American Farm Bureau 
Federation. 

George C. Roeding, formerly of the California Horticultural Com- 
mission. 

Sarah Louise Arnold, Dean Emerita of Simmons College. 


STAFF 


Directors 


Carl L. Alsberg, A. M., M. D., Executive Secretary for 1922-23. 
Joseph S. Davis, Ph. D. 
Alonzo.E.\ Taylor, M. D., LL.D: 


Associates Research Assistants 
Wilfred Eldred, Ph. D. Susan S. Burr, A. M. 
John L. Simpson, B. L. Lisette E. Fast, M. B.A. 
Adelaide M. Hobe, B. S. 
| Junior Associate Kathleen F. C. King 
Franklin D. Schurz, M. B.A. A. George Silverman, S. B. 
Research Fellows Secretaries 
Edith M. Hawley, A. M. Frances Blewett, A. B. 
James N. Holsen, A. M. Elizabeth Perry, A. M. 
Olat Sl) has. Bis. : Frances Perry, A. B. 


W. Blair Stewart, A. M. 


Conrad P. Wright, B. A. Librarian 


Laura C. Swabey 


PEA ROOD RES CARE DNS TET Wl re 


STANFORD UNIVERSITY 
1922—23 


FOUNDATION 


The Food Research Institute of Stanford University was 
founded in February 1921 by the Carnegie Corporation of New 
York in conjunction with the Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior 
University, California. The Institute grew out of a suggestion 
offered by Mr. Herbert Hoover, and its location at Stanford Uni- 
versity was due partly to the fact that this University possesses, 
in the Hoover War Library, a large and unique collection of docu- 
mentary material relating to the food problems and other economic 
aspects of the Great War. The Carnegie Corporation guarantees 
stated funds for the work for a period of ten years. Stanford 
University provides quarters and facilities and has appointed the 
directors of the Institute to positions on the Stanford faculty. 

The founding of the Food Research Institute was an outgrowth 
of war experience. During the late war, possibly for the first time 
in history, food production and distribution, nutrition and dietetics 
had to be considered by governments as national and international 
problems. In determining policies required to meet the emergency, 
food administrators sought certain scientific information from 
agriculturists, economists, physiologists, and physicians. Many 
valuable data were readily furnished. On the other hand, much of 
the desired information was not in existence, not because, given 
time, it would have been difficult to obtain, but because no one 
before the war had asked these questions or attempted to reach an 
adequate answer. Nutrition and dietetics had been studied mainly 
as individual problems, not as mass problems. The food supply 
had seldom been examined with adequate reference to its inter- 
national aspects and to the particular commodities entering into it. 
Marketing problems had received mainly local investigation. There 
had been little coordination of studies in several important fields, 
and serious gaps were numerous. In many instances, therefore, 


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the lack of essential information led to action more or less in the 
dark. 

The founders of the Food Research Institute were convinced 
that the scientific study of such problems, from a broad national 
and international viewpoint, was important in peace no less than 
in war. Fully recognizing the essential services which research 
work in federal and state agricultural departments and colleges had 
rendered and will continue to render, they considered that a non- 
governmental organization with University affiliations might have 
advantages in attacking certain kinds of problems without the limi- 
tations which apply to other agencies. 


ORGANIZATION 


The control of its policies and the active direction of the work 
of the Institute are in charge of three joint directors. The plan 
of the founders called for the selection of an expert in agriculture 
and food manufacture, an expert in economics and food distribu- 
tion, and an expert in the physiology and chemistry of nutrition. 
In accordance with this plan, the present directors were appointed 
in April 1921. During the following summer and fall the Insti- 
tute was organized at Stanford University. Gradually a staff has 
been built up. The present organization comprises the direc- 
tors and their secretaries, three research associates, five research 
assistants, and a librarian, besides five holders of Food Research 
Fellowships. 

The Institute is organized as an integral part of Stanford Uni- 
versity, with the status of a department for the purpose of directing 
research and recommending degrees. For the year 1922-23 it is 
maintaining five fellowships for graduate study in the field of food 
research. The directors guide the work of these fellows and of 
a few other well-qualified graduate students in studies falling 
within the general scope outlined below, sometimes constituting a 
specific part of a piece of research which the Institute has in 
progress. This individual research ordinarily forms a part of 
the work toward a higher degree at Stanford University, and is 
supplemented by such work in other departments of the University 
as may be necessary to fulfill the usual requirements for degrees. 

During the fall, winter, and spring quarters the Institute con- 
ducts a weekly seminar in food research. This is essentially a staff 


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meeting for the discussion of phases of research work in progress. 
To it are admitted a few suitably qualified seniors or graduate 
students of the University. Two of the directors are offering, in 
one quarter of the academic year 1922~—23, lecture courses open to 
qualified students of the University, with subjects as follows: 
Chemistry of Nutrition; Statistics at Work. A similar course on 
Food Resources of the World was offered in 1921-22. 


GENERAL POLICIES 


The Institute was organized for the purpose of intensive study 
of the production, distribution, and consumption of food. It pro- 
poses to investigate significant food problems from the stand- 
point of their bearing upon national economy and well-being, to 
deal with them as mass problems, and to emphasize the commodity 
and international aspects. While it will frequently study data of 
individual businesses, it will do this not in order to serve as a 
business adviser, but primarily in order to discover facts and prin- 
ciples of general importance. 

Numerous existing organizations are already conducting re- 
search into food problems, from one angle or another, notably the 
Department of Agriculture, state bureaus of markets, agricultural 
colleges and experiment stations; research organizations of banks, 
business houses, trade and marketing associations; and university 
departments, bureaus, or committees. It is the policy of the Insti- 
tute to avoid, so far as possible, any serious overlapping of the 
work of established research organizations, public or private. It 
will endeavor rather to enlist the aid of existing organizations in 
the prosecution of researches in which there is a common interest, 
in which essential data are already collected or in process of col- 
lection, or in which another organization is in a better position to 
perform a portion of the research. Moreover in numerous in- 
stances the Institute will consider its object attained if methods 
which it may develop, or sample studies which it may make, can 
be utilized by public or private agencies in undertaking similar in- 
vestigations on a far more extended scale. 

The research work will be done, for the most part, at Stanford 
University. In general, subjects for investigation will be selected 
which do not necessitate extensive field work, or in which the 
results of field investigations conducted by other competent or- 


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ganizations can be utilized. It is recognized, however, that certain 
investigations which the Institute can properly undertake may 
require more or less field work by the directors, associates, or fel- 
lows, and for these the necessary provision will be made. 

The Institute does not contemplate undertaking extensive ex- 
perimental work on its own account. Nevertheless the Univer- 
sity’s established facilities for experimental research on food, nu- 
trition, etc., are available to graduate students, and to a limited 
extent the directors of the Institute will cooperate in the direction 
of such research in its special field. Thus during the year 1922-23 
researches are in progress in the chemical laboratory of the Uni- 
versity upon certain problems of flour grading and analysis. 

In part the results of researches will be published through estab- 
lished technical journals. Where circumstances render this un- 
desirable, the results will usually appear in a series of publications 
to be issued by the Food Research Institute. In cases where cer- 
tain lines of research are of interest to specific groups of readers, 
other or additional channels of publication will be sought in order 
to reach those concerned. | 


RESEARCH WORK IN PROGRESS 


In accordance with an early decision of the directors, most of 
the research work of the Institute is concerned for the present with 
wheat and wheat products, and mainly with the economic prob- 
lems related to these commodities. The principal studies now in 
progress may be mentioned briefly. 

Crop estimating and reporting methods in the United States 
and abroad are being studied to determine how far past and cur- 
rent statistics of crops may be accepted as reliable, how far the 
bases upon which they are obtained are comparable, and in what 
ways the accuracy of crop forecasts and reports may be improved. 

In cooperation with the Kansas State Agricultural College, 
and with the aid of criticisms from other students of farming 
costs, detailed farm cost data are being studied in order to arrive 
at sound principles of cost analysis and effective means of inter- 
preting these data. 

Statistics of wheat and flour production, domestic movements, 
and imports and exports are being studied in their relation to 
prices. The objective of this study is an interpretation of the world 


6 


wheat position in the light of available statistics and other rele- 
vant facts. 

Economic developments in Europe, particularly in respect to 
agriculture and food consumption, are being followed with special 
reference to their bearing upon the demand for wheat imports. 

Census and other statistics of the baking industry are being 
assembled and digested to give a broad view of the organization 
of the baking industry and the tendencies in its development in 
recent years. The economic aspects of the baking industry as 
a whole, and particularly the bread-baking industry, are being 
surveyed in preliminary fashion as a basis for research upon spe- 
cial problems. 

The report on stale bread losses in the baking industry, soon to 
be issued, illustrates a more intensive type of study, involving the 
cooperation of bakers and the counsel of a committee of the 
American Bakers’ Association. 

Besides these studies in which the staff of the Institute is en- 
gaged, the holders of Food Research Fellowships are working 
upon problems selected in consultation with the directors. These 
studies relate to the following subjects: physical properties and 
chemical composition of flours in relation to their baking qualities ; 
the transportation of wheat and flour in the United States, with 
special reference to the development of the rate structure; factors 
limiting the expansion of food production with the growth of 
population ; economic laws of productivity, with special reference 
to food production; the food elements in measures of standards 
of living. 

PUBLICATIONS 


' The first year of the Institute was largely occupied with the 
establishment at Stanford, the determination of general policies, 
the organization of a staff, enlarging the collection of materials 
required for research, and making preliminary surveys and investi- 
gations designed to furnish the basis for more intensive studies. 
The work has been fully under way only since the summer of 1922. 
Accordingly most of the research work is still in its early stages. 


NT 


The following contributions published 1 in. -various journals rep- 
resent the results of particular researches” ‘or papers incidental to 
research work: 7 


Joseru S. Davis. “Bread Distribution: a Subject for Research.” 
Bakers Weekly, Oct. 29, 1921. (Also published in other trade 
journals. ) mateiaatny es 

Atonzo E. Taytor. “The World’s Need of Russia.” Proceedings 
of the Thirty-fifth Annual Convention of Land-Grant Col- 
leges, November, 1921. 

JosepH S. Davis. “Economic Research for Bakers.” Bakers Buy- 
ing Guide, 1922. 

Atonzo E. Taytor. ‘Consumption After the Boom.” Saturday 
Evening Post, June 3, 1922. 

Atonzo E. Taytor. “The Commercial Importance of Russia.” 
American Economic Review, September, 1922. 

Atonzo E. Taytor. “The Competitive Menace of the Tropics.” 
Circular No. 150, College of Agriculture, University of Wis- 
consin, September, 1922. 

[JosepH S. Davis AND WILFR:D ELpRED]. “Stale Bread Loss: 
Preliminary Report of Investigation by Food Research Insti- 
tute,’ September 16, 1922. (Mimeographed. Also published 
in various trade journals.) 

Autonzo E, Taytor. “The Decline in the Price of Cereals.” Jour- 
nal of Farm Economics, October, 1922. 

Atonzo E. Taytor. “The Future of the United States as a Food 
Exporter.” Manchester Guardian Commercial, November 16, 
1922. 


The first of the Institute series of publications, now in press, 
will be the following: 


JoserpH S. Davis AND WILFRED ELprep. “Stale Bread Loss as a 
Problem of the Baking Industry.” Food Research Institute 
Publication No. 1, February, 1923. 


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STANForRD UNiIverSsITY Press 


